Author: Balbir K. Punj
Publication: Organiser
Date: August 27, 2006
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=145&page=8
Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil, the Major Archbishop
Syro-Malabar Church Ernakulam-Angamaly, was recently in news for warning that
Kerala would become an Islamic state in another 20 years. His grim predictions
were based on changing religious demography of the state where Muslims have
left Hindus and Christians behind by non-acceptance of family planning. He
was blunt enough to say that Muslims girls are being indoctrinated from an
early age to have eight children, while 'more than eight is a blessing from
Allah'.
Although professional demographers might disagree
over its arithmetic nitty-gritty, Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil's statement
is buttressed by sound demographic perceptions. However, the best part of
his assertion is that it comes from a minority community religious leader.
This alone is enough to make it acceptable to professional 'secularists' of
India who discredited any such projection of Muslim demography as Sangh Parivar's
scare-mongering. When an authority as competent as the Registrar General of
India-cum-Census Commissioner Jayanta Kumar Banthia, IAS statistically established
the veracity of this apprehension through 'Census 2001-The First Report on
Religion Data' (released on September, 2004), the Union Home Minister of the
UPA government ensured Banthia was removed from his post.
Resorting to a crude statistical forgery it
tried to fudge the figures of Muslim population growth. It was indeed a fuzzy
logic that censuses had not been held in the state of J&K in 1991 and
Assam in 1981. But the ridiculous 'adjustments' (in reality maladjustments)
carried out in the census results (for strange reasons going back to 1961
census) failed to make amends for the highly visible reality that Muslim population
growth is on rampage while demography of Hindus, Sikhs, Christians are shrinking.
Kerala is neither J&K nor Assam. In fact
it is often portrayed as India's success story in economic and social engineering.
Hindus with a demographic share of 56.2 per cent form the bulk, while Muslims
at 24.7 per cent and Christians at 19 percent follow suit. Thus Kerala 'God's
own country' is a basket of religious diversity. Apart from three major religions
of India, Kerala is also the bastion of atheist communist ideology, whose
government currently happens to be in power. It is also the best literate
state.
It is generally believed that education leads
to adoption of small family norms. But this general principal does not hold
good in case of Muslims. In Kerala Muslim literacy rate is 89.4 per cent,
a little below 90.9 per cent of overall literacy but their growth rate is
enormously high at 16 per cent as against nine per cent for Kerala as whole.
Beyond Kerala as well, e.g. in Maharashtra Muslim literacy is 78.1 per cent
better than over all literacy of 76.9 per cent, yet Muslims are growing at
35 per cent as against 23 for Maharashtra as whole. In Chattisgarh, Muslim
literary is way ahead at 82.5 per cent as against state's overall 64.7 per
cent; but so is there growth rate at 37 per cent nearly more than double of
state's average 18.3 per cent. But in all these places their work participation
ratio is less, even abysmally lesser, than state's average. This trend also
holds good for Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. In such a scenario the
Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil's theory of 'eight children' appear more credible
than the hypothesis of literacy.
What prompted Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil
to make his dire forecast? He is certainly aware that Hindu demographic share
in Kerala's population has been on the wane since the beginning of the last
century. Hindus comprised 68.90 per cent in 1901; 66.91 in 1911; 64.93 in
1921; 63.40 in 1931; 62.40 in 1941; 61.61 in 1951; 60.87 in 1961. All through
this time the Christian population of Kerala was on the rise. In 1901 it was
13.82 per cent; in 1911 it was 15.40 per cent; in 1921 it was 17.64 per cent;
in 1931 was 19.52 percent; in 1941 it was 20.52 per cent; in 1951 it was 20.86
per cent before hitting at times high of 21.22 in 1961. Since then the Christian
population, which once grew at the expense of Hindu population, tapered off.
The Christians who by 1921 had overtaken the
Muslims in demographic terms began to lose out after 1971. The colonial era
had defined the growth curve of Christians. The post-independence era has
been demographic boom time of Muslims. Their population share that was restricted
between 17 to 18 per cent in censuses between 1901 and 1961 began to grow
by leaps and bound since then. It was 19.50 per cent in 1971; 21.25 percent
in 1981; 23.33 per cent in 1991; and 24.7 per cent in 2001. The comparative
figures are quoted from the monumental study "Religious Demography of
India" done by Dr. J.K. Bajaj, A.P. Joshi and M.D. Srinivasan of Centre
for Policy Studies, Chennai.
The colossal 'population control' propaganda
launched by the government of India seems to have left little impact on Muslims
in India's model state. Today even Christians of India, whose natural growth
is less than that of Hindus, feel threatened.
What Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil says has
been confirmed by the reputed Muslim clerics in advance. Immediately after
the First Report on Religion Data left the nation shaken but not stirred All
India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIPLB) chief Maulana Rabe Hasan Nadvi said:
"Family planning is not Islamic" and Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid Ahmed
Bukhari said there is no place for family planning in Islam. The lone dissenting
voice was AIMPLB Vice-President Maulana Syed Kalbe Sadiq who was completely
isolated.
A man of religion has shown the guts to speak
the truth, but the 'secularists' of Kerala, whether the Congress and the Communists
are busy defending Abdul Nasser Madani. Madani's communal credentials were
established even before he allegedly masterminded the Coimbatore bomb blast
on Valentine's Day of 1998 in which Shri L.K. Advani had a providential escape.
For a man who delivered inflammatory and seditious speeches across Kerala
in 1992 and set up rabidly fundamentalists Islamic Sevak Sangh; the Kerala
Legislative Assembly, where the BJP has no presence, met for a special session
on Holi to pass a unanimous resolution to get him released on parole from
Tamil Nadu's high security prison.
In Kerala, the 'secularists' seem to have
taken over the burden of heralding the Islamic state that Cardinal Varkey
Vithayathil speaks about. How the All India Muslim League in Kerala was marginalised
in last legislative assembly elections? It is due to whirlwind propaganda
of 'secular' communists that they would be sensitive towards extra-territorial
issues agitating the Muslims viz. Iraq, Palestine, Al-Qeada, global war on
terror. Thus 'secularists' have gone to the extent where Muslim League would
dare not. In a facetious move the politburo had projected lightweight Paoli
Mohammed as the Chief Ministerial candidate of Kerala. Will Kerala go Islamic
- watch 'secularists' for the answer.
